🔗 Share this article

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.